


Dance Before the Song Ends

by unfolded73



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 20:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Jack meet on an out-of-the-way planet, several months after the events of <i>Children of Earth.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance Before the Song Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published 04 September, 2009. Beta'd by jfiliberti.

He almost didn’t recognise Jack without the coat. 

The Doctor had stepped out of the TARDIS and into a bustling marketplace. It wasn’t Earth, but it wasn’t far, as either interstellar distances or the timeline went. So perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised when he identified the familiar _fact_ , the _wrongness_ of Jack Harkness ahead of him, but this galaxy was still an awfully big place. He spared a brief glare back in the direction of the TARDIS; his ship was no doubt responsible. 

He didn’t make any effort to catch up to Jack, or to call out. Nonetheless, their eyes met over a stall where they were selling, from what the Doctor could tell, spare parts from kitchen appliances. He saw Jack’s widen in surprise before they sank back into a hard sort of masked despair.

“Captain.”

“Doctor.”

The Doctor didn’t need to ask why Jack wasn’t on Earth. The events surrounding the 456 had a massive effect on Earth’s political history, and as a result the Doctor had known about it for centuries. He’d also known he couldn’t interfere; it was a fixed point in time. But he hadn’t trusted himself to let things happen, hadn’t trusted that he could stand by and watch those things unfold on the closest planet he had to a home. So the Doctor had stayed away. 

It was only later that he learned what it had cost Jack. One more thing for the Doctor to hate himself for – he couldn’t save Donna, and once again he couldn’t save Jack.

“Fixing your refrigerator?” Jack asked, pointing to the part that the Doctor had picked up.

The Doctor looked down at his hand, and dropped the unit with a metallic clunk. “No.” He swallowed the meaningless apology that rose to his lips. It wouldn’t help, and it would probably just make Jack angry. “You’re looking a little lean, Jack. When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Yeah, but this is my natural build,” he said, smoothing his hands down the front of his jacket. “You ...” He took in Jack’s worn clothes, dirty fingernails. “What _are_ you doing?”

“Working in a repair shop in town.” He picked up the part that the Doctor had dropped. “And, as it happens, I need to fix a refrigerator.”

“Come back to the TARDIS with me. Have a bath and a hot meal.”

“Can’t. I’m expected back at the shop.” The set of Jack’s jaw betrayed his stubbornness.

“Jack ...”

“I don’t need your charity or your pity.”

The Doctor drew himself up to his full height. “It’s not charity; it costs me nothing. And you’ll be giving me someone to talk to, something I get little enough of these days.” He saw the slightest sign of wavering in Jack’s gaze. “Please,” the Doctor added, wincing internally at what felt like a naked display of his own loneliness.

Jack heaved a sigh. “Tell me where the TARDIS is parked. Maybe I’ll come after my shift is over.”

Which meant he would come, the Doctor thought as he relayed the information. Jack turned without a word and headed off to his menial job. The Doctor understood guilt, possibly better than anyone. He’d just never found self-imposed penance to be all that useful in assuaging it. 

And so it was that several hours later, the Doctor looked up from his tinkering at the console to see Jack approaching the TARDIS on the viewscreen. He wasn’t tentative; the Doctor couldn’t imagine ever describing Jack with such an adjective, and so the fact that Jack knocked took the Doctor aback slightly. Perhaps he’d lost his key. Perhaps he’d chosen not to keep it.

He opened the door and waved Jack in silently, watching the other man for a reaction to being in the console room again. 

“My old room?” was all he asked.

“Haven’t been in it since the last time you were here,” the Doctor responded, remembering the few days that Jack had spent with him after the Valiant year was erased, helping to repair the TARDIS. 

“I’ll have that bath then, if it’s all right,” Jack said.

“Of course.” Without another word, Jack disappeared down the hallway.

When Jack found him half an hour later in the galley, his face bore the barest hint of a smile. “You’re cooking?” Jack asked with no small amount of incredulity. He was wearing fresh clothes: a white T-shirt and jeans that had probably been on board since before the Doctor regenerated. Such a long time ago.

“Are you insinuating that after living for hundreds of years, I am incapable of cooking, Captain?” The Doctor glanced at the stew he was warming. “Although, in truth, I’m just reheating some takeaway.”

Jack laughed, and it sounded almost genuine.

They ate in silence. Jack ate two helpings of the stew, and the Doctor found himself absurdly pleased at that fact. If he couldn’t do anything else to ease Jack’s pain, at least he’d given him the simple pleasure of a meal and clean clothes. 

Jack finally put down his spoon and leaned back in his chair, and the two men regarded each other for a beat. “Travelling alone?” Jack asked.

“Yeah.”

Jack only nodded in response to that, and the Doctor felt some tension leave his shoulders. Anyone else would have been full of questions or recriminations: for what the Doctor had done in the past, for choosing to stay on his own when he certainly could have found someone else. Jack didn’t have to ask and didn’t blame him for being on his own. It was, after all, the same choice Jack was making by working on an unimportant mining planet in an unimportant corner of the galaxy. Loneliness was preferable to an awful lot of things.

Jack sighed heavily. “Go ahead,” he said out of nowhere.

“What?”

“You’ve been dying to apologise to me since you saw me. For not being there when the 456 came.”

“Jack, you have to understand, that event was fixed.” The Doctor said, suddenly desperate for him to understand. “There would have been nothing I could have—”

“I know,” his words belied by the brief flash of bitterness in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know.” 

Jack stood up and stretched, effectively ending the conversation, and took his bowl over to the sink to wash it. The Doctor joined him. “Jack, look, I don’t know what your living situation is on this planet, but if you’d like to sleep here for the night, you can.”

His offer was met with a grinning leer from Jack. “Doctor, I didn’t think you felt that way about me.”

The Doctor huffed. “I meant sleep _in your room_ , Jack.”

“Relax, I was just joking. I know what you meant,” he said with a short laugh, scrubbing the bowl and rinsing it.

“I didn’t invite you here for sex,” the Doctor added unnecessarily, the statement causing his brain to fill with images. Images that brought a long-forgotten heaviness to his groin, and the Doctor almost gasped in surprise.

“I really believe that,” Jack said dispassionately, looking at the wall instead of meeting the Doctor’s eyes.

“You don’t have to be so ... certain about it,” he responded, flinching at the way the pitch of his voice rose. “I might’ve invited you here for sex.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

“Well, no, probably not.” He really looked at the other man then, a man who had wanted him, once upon a time. And the Doctor found that just then, he wanted to be wanted. “But that’s not to say that I would turn it down,” he said quickly, before his courage fled.

“You really _are_ lonely,” Jack said, still holding himself aloof. 

That stung, partly because it was true. “Right,” the Doctor said sharply. “Well, never mind. You can do what you like. I’ll just—” But he was prevented from making his exit by Jack pressing him against the counter, smashing his lips against the Doctor’s almost violently.

The Doctor opened his mouth, allowing Jack to lead. The other man tasted like the meal they’d just eaten, with a faint hint of breath mints and cigarettes behind it. Jack’s hips pressed hard against his own, pushing him almost painfully against the high counter behind them. He felt the other man’s teeth scrape his bottom lip, and the Doctor groaned.

“Sorry,” Jack whispered when he finally wrenched his mouth away from the Doctor’s.

“It’s fine.” It was more than fine, actually, and his own growing erection was a testament to its more-than-fineness. 

Jack seemed affected as well, but he was backing up, withdrawing himself. “I told you, I don’t want your charity. Even _I_ can’t be fixed with a shag.”

“I might have an inflated sense of my own abilities, but I promise you that doesn’t extend to a belief in the healing power of my ...” The Doctor trailed off, smirking, but felt his own brief happiness drain away after a moment under Jack’s guarded gaze. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Even _I_ want to let go and forget everything else occasionally. Okay? I’m not ... it isn’t charity. And why do you keep accusing me of being so charitable? For the record, I’m not a particularly charitable person.”

Jack stalked toward him again. “No, you’re not,” he said right before capturing the Doctor’s mouth again. The kiss was just as forceful as before, but a little bit more calculated, a little bit more _Jack_ , for lack of a better word. The Doctor’s skin buzzed being this close to the infinite paradox that was Jack Harkness, but he found that if anything, it heightened his arousal. He felt Jack’s hands go into his hair and he let his own settle on Jack’s waist, above the rough denim of his jeans. The Doctor met each thrust of Jack’s hips, enjoying the almost painful friction generated by their movements.

The Doctor ended the kiss, watching the rise and fall of Jack’s chest as he breathed heavily. “Do you wanna ...?” The Doctor gestured in the direction of the bedrooms with a jerk of his head.

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

They walked the curved, coral hallway in awkward silence. When they reached Jack’s bedroom, the Doctor stood with his hands in his pockets and watched as Jack sat down on the bed to unlace and remove his boots. He was quick and efficient, and when he stood up and dropped his jeans, the Doctor found he couldn’t take his eyes off Jack’s erection as it bobbed free. He began to wonder what had possessed him to suggest this, and if he wasn’t in over his head.

“Well? Are you gonna prove my theory that you actually never take that suit off?” Jack asked, staring him up and down before pulling his T-shirt over his head.

The Doctor frowned and bent over to take his trainers off. While he undressed, Jack got into bed, lying back with his hands behind his head, and watched. 

“Enjoying the show?” the Doctor asked him as he unbuttoned his pale blue shirt. 

“As a matter of fact, I am. Very much.” 

The Doctor unfastened his trousers and dropped them, along with his pants, quickly to the floor. 

“Very very much,” Jack added, smiling widely as the Doctor crawled under the sheets and over him on the bed. 

Their bodies came together and the Doctor was unable to suppress a groan at the sensation, the pure pleasure of touch that he hadn’t allowed himself in far too long. One of Jack’s large hands gripped his neck, the other on his lower back, and they kissed deeply. The Doctor braced himself against the mattress with his arms locked, but he gradually let himself relax, let his hips rest against Jack’s. The other man thrust up against him, and the Doctor broke the kiss in a ragged gasp. 

“This doesn’t mean I’m coming on board to travel with you,” Jack said.

“Didn’t ask you to,” the Doctor breathed.

Jack rolled them so that they were lying on their sides. His hand ghosted down the Doctor’s neck, gently caressing his shoulder and chest, before he reached down between their bodies and took the Doctor’s cock in his hand. Jack stroked him slowly, with light pressure, and the Doctor found himself sighing, his eyes fluttering closed.

The exquisite torture of Jack’s caresses continued for several minutes. Eventually the Doctor reached around and grabbed Jack’s arse, pulling their groins against each other. Jack adjusted his grip so that he was holding both of their cocks together in his hand. The Doctor moved his hips desperately, his penis sliding against Jack’s inside the tight grip of the other man’s fingers.

“Fuck, Jack,” he groaned. _“Yes.”_

“This is good?” Jack asked him.

“Yes.” He was going to come embarrassingly quickly at this rate. The Doctor kissed Jack hard, still thrusting into his hand, and Jack stroked him faster, reaching down to gently squeeze his balls with his other hand.

The Doctor was grunting with each pump of his hips now, and all he could manage in warning was to stutter out, “I’m ... I’m really close,” before his climax hit him, waves of pleasure so intense that he felt like one of his hearts might stop. He was vaguely aware of the undignified sounds he was making as he rode out his orgasm, and the undignified fact of having just ejaculated all over his friend’s hand and stomach. 

Jack released him carefully and bent over the side of the bed to retrieve his T-shirt and clean himself up. He handed it to the Doctor when he was done, and the Doctor dabbed at his crotch before throwing the shirt on the floor. Jack lay on his back, his erection tenting the sheet that lay over them. “It’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it? Since anyone touched you,” he commented.

He started to deny it, but realised there was no point. “It’s been a while,” the Doctor answered vaguely, then leaned over and gave Jack a quick kiss. “Thank you.” It occurred to him that he had returned little of Jack’s attentions, overwhelmed as he had been by physical pleasure. Fighting the boneless feeling in his limbs, The Doctor rose up over him on his hands and knees, and leaned over and kissed Jack’s chest, raking his tongue over one of his nipples before sucking it sharply enough to make the other man gasp. He began working his way down Jack’s body, methodically but not so slowly as to tease him. He lowered the sheet as he went.

“You don’t have to ...” Jack said as the Doctor slid one knee between Jack’s legs.

“It’s the least I can do,” the Doctor said, lowering his head far enough so that Jack could feel his breath on his cock, and the Doctor felt him shudder at the sensation. “Besides, while it’s been even longer since I did _this_ , I think you’ll find I’m perfectly capable. Better than,” he added, then ran his tongue up the underside of Jack’s penis.

“Oh?”

“Yes. For one thing, I have a respiratory bypass system, which among other things means my peristalsis is not involuntary.” He splayed the fingers of one hand over Jack’s hip, massaging with his thumb.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I have no gag reflex,” the Doctor said, then took Jack’s cock deep into his throat. Jack’s hips bucked in reaction to the sudden sensation, and the Doctor sucked firmly before pulling almost all the way off and then taking all of him again.

He worked Jack in and out at a steady pace, the other man breathing heavily but otherwise staying silent. Eventually he felt Jack’s hands settle in his hair, the tightening of his fingers indicating the intensifying of his need. He allowed Jack to hold his head in place, allowed him to thrust into his mouth; it made it even easier, actually, to submit to Jack’s desire, just as he had remained relatively docile while Jack had brought him to orgasm a few minutes before.

It wasn’t long before Jack came, tensing and shouting at the ceiling as the Doctor did his best to swallow, still holding Jack’s cock in his mouth. When Jack’s fingers relaxed in his hair, the Doctor released him, crawling back up the bed and flopping down on his back.

“Glad I didn’t know all those years ago that you were that good at giving head; would have driven me insane,” Jack said.

The Doctor hummed noncommittally at that, and Jack fell silent.

“Do you really not want to travel with me?” the Doctor asked after several minutes of quiet.

“Travelling with you means holding people’s lives in your hands. It means making life and death decisions, decisions that impact whole planets. I can’t do that anymore.” There was a heavy pause, and then Jack laughed bitterly. “Besides, I thought you wanted to be alone.”

“It’s not that I want to be alone. But it’s easier to stay alone than it is getting used to being alone after I’ve lost them.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at him. “Is it really, or is that just what you tell yourself?”

“You should talk.” The Doctor rolled over to face Jack, his head pillowed on his bent arm. “Anyway, it’s not just that.”

“What?”

“Something’s coming.” He suppressed a shiver, thinking of Carmen’s warning. Thinking of the same words coming from Ood Sigma before. “I think it’s something big. I think ... I mean, it’s possible I might die.”

“ _Die_ die, or regenerate die?” Jack asked.

The Doctor shrugged. “Either way, I don’t want to drag anyone else into it.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but then seemed to think better of it. “You’ve been through so much. You’ve lost so many people, just in the time that I’ve known you. Haven’t you ever considered just ... hanging it all up? Retiring to some small system and letting the universe go fuck itself?”

“Can’t.” He stretched and rolled onto his back again. “I’d still know, still feel it, up here.” The Doctor tapped his temple. “Ripples in the timeline, points where I could make a difference, where I could save people, save planets and civilisations.”

“Guess I’m lucky then, in a way.” His expression grew bitter again. “But at least the people you’re missing most right now are still alive.”

“Martha told me ... I’m sorry about Ianto. Seemed like a good bloke, the little I saw of him,” the Doctor said.

“He was. I loved him, and I waited too long to tell him.”

“I know what that’s like.” He stared up at the ceiling, and he could feel Jack watching him. 

“Did Rose ever learn why I can’t die?” Jack asked.

“Not as far as I know. I suppose the other me might’ve told her, but we’ll never know, will we?”

“She’s always alive to you this way, isn’t she? Never being able to see her again, there’s an advantage to that, right?”

“Thought you might understand that,” the Doctor said.

“I don’t, I think it’s bullshit and cowardly. But I think I understand the way your mind works, and in that sense, yes, I understand it.”

The Doctor bristled at that. “Don’t act all superior with me, Captain. You’re the one pretending to be some ordinary bloke who works in a repair shop so that you can hide out on this god-forsaken planet. So don’t talk to me about cowardly.”

Jack sat up, looking ready to do battle, but just as quickly the fight seemed to drain out of him. “That’s me, I’m a coward,” he said, lying back down. 

“You aren’t actually, not in the way that matters.” 

Jack shrugged. “I’d better be going,” he said, starting to get out of bed.

“Stay tonight,” the Doctor urged him. “You can go in the morning.”

“I don’t sleep much, it’s really not necessary.” But he didn’t move to go again.

“I don’t really sleep much either,” the Doctor said, watching Jack as he lay beside him with his eyes shut. The irony wasn’t lost on the Doctor when he awoke from a doze a little while later to see Jack sound asleep. The Doctor dozed off again, and the next time he woke up, Jack was gone.

In the early morning hours, on an unimportant mining planet in an unimportant corner of the galaxy, a man who never aged ate breakfast and went to work in a repair shop. A few miles away, the TARDIS disappeared from a deserted street, piloted by its sole inhabitant.


End file.
